Category: Magma

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Earthquake swarm in Reykjanes volcano and earthquake activity on Reykjanes ridge

Today (29-December-2020) an earthquake swarm took place in Reykjanes volcano. This was just small earthquakes but the amount is considerable. This earthquake activity happens because of magma inflation in this area.


Earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Reykjanes ridge

Today (29-December-2020) and earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,1 took place on Reykjanes ridge. This earthquake was far out in the ocean. Only one other smaller earthquake seems to have happened in that same area after the largest earthquake. Otherwise there has not been any more earthquake activity today out on the Reykjanes ridge.


Earthquake activity on Reykjanes ridge. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

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Strong earthquake in Bárðarbunga volcano

Today (21-December-2020) at 11:38 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,9 took place in Bárðarbunga volcano.


The earthquake activity in Bárðarbunga volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake had two earlier earthquakes with magnitude of Mw2,4 and Mw2,8. Smaller earthquake activity seems to have stopped or happening at slow rate at the writing of this article. Currently Bárðarbunga volcano has an earthquake with magnitude Mw3,0 to Mw5,0 every few weeks since end of the eruption in 2015. This pattern doesn’t seems to be changing.

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Earthquake swarm in Reykjanes volcano early morning

Early morning on 16-December-2020 at 04:30 UTC an earthquake with magnitude of Mw4,1 took place close to Reykjanestá in Reykjanes volcano. The largest earthquake was felt over a large area. A swarm of small earthquakes started soon after the largest earthquake and this swarm was active for few hours.


The green star shows the area of activity early morning in Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

A second smaller earthquake swarm started just north of Grindvík town few hours after the earthquake swarm close to Reykjanestá. GPS data for the area doesn’t seems to have updated on the web and because of that I don’t know if the area is entering new inflation phase or not. The earthquake activity suggests that Reykjanes volcano is about to enter a new inflation phase but that is currently not certain.

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Earthquake swarm in Reykjanes volcano and deep earthquake activity in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano

Today (10-December-2020) at 00:08 an earthquake with the magnitude of Mw3,5 took place in the volcano Reykjanes. This earthquake was felt in nearby area. Since then there has been a minor earthquake swarm going on in the area of Reykjanestá.


Green star shows the earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

Brennisteinsfjöll volcano

Today (10-December-2020) an deep earthquake swarm took place in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano. All earthquakes that took place where small in magnitude but depth was from around 5km to 12 km depth. It is not known at the writing of this article if this suggests an magma movement inside Brennisteinsfjöll volcano.


Orange dots to east of Krýsuvík volcano show the activity in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

I am expecting more earthquake activity in Brennisteinsfjöll volcano in next few months. It is going to take few weeks to months to see if anything more is going on there.

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Minor earthquake swarm in Askja volcano

Today (05-December-2020) a minor earthquake swarm took place in Askja volcano. All earthquakes in this earthquake swarm where under Mw2,0 in magnitude.


Earthquake activity in Askja volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity suggests that magma is on the move in Askja volcano. Nothing however suggests that Askja volcano is close to an eruption of any type. Current situation seems to have been created by the fact Bárðarbunga volcano 2014 eruption almost started an eruption in Askja volcano by injecting magma into it. That didn’t happen because the magma stopped before reaching Askja volcano magma chambers. That interaction might have changed the situation inside Askja volcano magma chambers resulting in the earthquake activity that is now appearing in Askja volcano.

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Earthquake swarm north of Grindavík town in Reykjanes volcano

At 11:23 UTC today 1-December-2020 an earthquake with magnitude of Mw3,6 took place north of Grindavík town in the Reykjanes volcano. This earthquake was felt but few reported on it. A swarm of smaller earthquakes has followed both earlier of after the largest earthquake.


The earthquake activity in Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This earthquake activity is part of the process of magma injection into this area since January 2020. There is a risk of stronger earthquake in this area following this earthquake swarm. Earthquake activity happens in high activity time period with quiet period between them. This earthquake swarm suggests that new activity period is about to start in this area of Reykjanes volcano.

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Minor earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano

After months of being quiet there has now been new earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. The earthquake activity that took place was all just minor earthquakes but the deepest of them had a depth of 14 km and the second deepest had a depth of 12 km. Other earthquakes where at shallower depth.


Earthquake activity in Öræfajökull volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

It is not possible to know what is going on in Öræfajökull volcano because what happens before an eruption is not documented in any details and the documents that exists today are old and the oldest documents of an eruption in Öræfajökull volcano are getting close to 660 years old. The younger documents are only 293 years old. This earthquake activity seems to be over at the writing of this article but it might resume without warning at any time.

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Swarm of small earthquakes in Reykjanes volcano

Today (11-November-2020) a swarm of small earthquakes took place north of Grindavík town in the Reykjanes volcano. This where all small earthquakes and largest earthquake had a magnitude of Mw1,7. At the writing of this article Icelandic Met Office website lists 76 earthquakes on Reykjanes peninsula.


The earthquake activity in the Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There is not a big change in the GPS data but there is a small change that suggests that Krýsuvík volcano has started to inflate more after the magnitude Mw5,6 earthquake. The GPS data can be viewed at University of Iceland GPS Reykjanes time series.

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Strong inflation detected in Reykjanes volcano after Mw5,6 earthquake

The earthquake on 20-October-2020 was followed by a strong inflation in Reykjanes volcano. Current levels of inflation are about ~50mm according to Icelandic Met Office and can be seen on GPS measurements in recent days (GPS time series for Reykjanes).


The inflation in Reykjanes volcano. I had to scale this image because of WordPress requirements. Full size image can be found here on Icelandic Met Office website. Red is more inflation, blue is deflation or lower areas. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

This inflation appears clearly on GPS stations that are closest to this area. The area where the most inflation is a small mountain called Keilir. Last eruption in this area was sometimes during last ice age. This inflation also explains the earthquake activity that has been going on in this area for the last few days as I have written earlier about.


Current earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninsula. Detection of smaller earthquakes is lower because of bad weather in Iceland. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

As of the writing of this article I am expecting more earthquakes and more inflation to happen in this volcano and other close by areas. It is not possible to know when a eruption is going to happen in Reykjanes volcano.

Icelandic Met Office News

Significant ground deformation detected associated with recent earthquakes (en.vedur.is)

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Earthquake activity along west-east fault on Reykjanes peninsula in Reykjanes volcano

Today (24-October-2020) I noticed that there has been since yesterday (23-October-2020) a swarm of small earthquakes on what appears to be a west to east fault on the Reykjanes peninsula in the Reykjanes volcano. All of this earthquake activity is mostly just small earthquakes that don’t appear on the automatic map on Icelandic Met Office website. This earthquake activity only appears after a manual review that Icelandic Met Office has do. The total length of the fault that is in west to east direction seems to be 20 km to 30 km, it is difficult to be sure at the writing of this article.


The earthquake activity on the Reykjanes peninusla in the Reykjanes volcano. Copyright of this image belongs to Icelandic Met Office.

There are more faults at work in this. One or two fault are in mostly north-south direction and one fault is at southwest to northeast direction. There is also some cluster earthquake activity in Krýsuvík volcano but it doesn’t seem to have formed any fault like direction as of writing of this article. This changes seems to be supported by movement on the automatic GPS data from this area that can be viewed here (GPS time series for Reykjanes). It is difficult to be sure what happens next in this. There is now a storm passing over Iceland and that prevents detection and recording of the smallest earthquakes on the Reykjanes peninsula. The weather forecast for next week doesn’t look so good today (Saturday 24-October-2020).

It is a fact that not every eruption requires a big and strong earthquake swarm to start. I don’t know if that is true for Reykjanes volcano.